The Nature of Crows

Joe lay his head down on the tracks with a sigh. His life was soon no longer going to bother him. Not that it had been a bad life. In fact, by most measures it had been a spectacular success. Joe had excelled in school, both regular and higher, had gotten a decent and respectable job which he had excelled at, had married and produced three normal well-adjusted children who were now busy duplicating his success in life. Yet, through it all, Joe had gotten little satisfaction. Even though society at large would judge him a capable and proper member, he himself had virtually no satisfaction in these rather standard accomplishments. A result of an over-expectant psychological system, Joe felt that his life was rather pedestrian. He had stood out in no other way than not having failed at a normal life. This was not enough in his own mind, and his lack of outstanding achievement haunted him throughout his tiresome life even while he was congratulated and praised by those around him.

And so, at the age of sixty-five, having outlived his frankly forgettable and complacent wife and with his children long since grown and raising children of their own, Joe had decided to forgo any further dull years of fading away into aged ineptitude and was soberly departing this mortal coil for either a less mediocre afterlife or the ungrudging void of nonexistence, he did not care which. Breathing calmly, he took the minute or two he had left to once again reflect on his life to date, mostly to pass the time but also to distract from the uncomfortable and cold track beneath his bald head. Gradually, as the light of the oncoming train began to brighten the area around him and the sound of the locomotive crept from the silence into a steady rumble, he exhausted his analysis of his failure to live up to his own grandiose expectations of himself and closed his eyes in resignation to his fate.

As the sounds of the train grew to the point of annoyance and the horn began to sound, he felt the track begin to vibrate beneath him as the ground shook at the approach of the multiple tons of steel and other assorted materials. Piercing these sounds came a sharp cry of a woman. His eyes snapping open in annoyance, Joe was able to distinguish the scream from that of a cry of surprise. The scream was one of distress, not concern. Someone, of the female persuasion, was in trouble.

Instincts inherent to both his gender and his societal upbringing kicked in while his conscious mind was still contemplating whether he wanted to get involved, especially considering what he was attempting to accomplish that night. He reasoned that whatever was occurring was not outside of the realm of what happened every day, and what would his interference actually achieve in the grand scheme of things anyway? Besides which, if he was going to depart this existence, what did he care what occurred in it once he was gone? His body, either not considering such logical justifications for inaction, or not caring for them, ignored his selfish reasoning and got up.

Looking around, he barely noticed as the train he had meant to catch passed harmlessly directly behind him. Now intent on his immediate purpose, Joe spotted the woman in distress almost immediately. About twenty yards away, under barely adequate lighting to discern what was transpiring, Joe saw her and her assailant struggling. While he was sure of her intentions, to escape her attacker, Joe was entirely baffled by the actions of her antagonist. The man, at least Joe thought it was a man, was not directly assaulting the young lady. Nor was he physically threatening her. Rather, it appeared the man was dancing. Capering about in a violent and frankly disturbing fashion, the man was obviously making the young woman fear for her safety, and as she was backed into a corner, Joe decided he would indeed intervene on her behalf, if for no other reason than to calm her down and get her to stop screaming. Striding over with confident purposeful determination, Joe approached the pair, shouting at the man with a sharp, "Hey!" in an attempt to get his attention.

The man, if that was indeed what it was, Joe was still not certain of this having yet to get a good look at the gesticulating figure, ignored Joe and continued to draw slightly closer to the terrified woman, who seemed to be trying to draw herself through the wall she was trapped against. Reaching out with this right hand, Joe grabbed ahold of the bulky sweater the offending individual wore, and jerked back swiftly in an attempt to pull him off his feet. What came back in his hand surprised Joe. The sweater pulled clean off of the figure as if it were torn in half, as a furry black mass poured out of the center from both the bottom and top halves. A heaving mass of squeaking scrambling rats erupted from the clothes, spilling out in all directions as the rodents suddenly made haste to vacate the area. As the small creatures left the empty clothes behind in a pile, Joe looked with shock at the empty sweater still clutched in his hand. The color drained from his face as a quizzical expression clouded his expressions, not from fear but from the heart attack, the trauma and absurdity of the event overwhelmed his aged heart. As he collapsed, Joe had two thoughts running through his head. The first was that he was no longer bored with life. The second was the irony that he might be about to leave it anyway.